Taking a Turn....

I have two turns to report to you today... Chris has taken a turn for the better although he is only eating a 1/4 of what he usually eats. When I work late he fixes himself a Lipton rice side (which is enough for two) and some Purdue frozen bourbon chicken (found at Costco). He will usually eat almost all of it in one sitting but yesterday he made 3 meals out of it. His stomach definitely shrunk during this whole sick thing. He is at work today and feeling much better so thank you for all your prayers.

The turn for the worse I have to report is about Mr. Hood. He had a great weekend and seemed like the antibiotic was helping but yesterday morning Martha Sue got to the hospital and they were putting a low dose of intravenous chemo into his IV. She didn't know what was going on. She talked to the hematologist (Doctor specializing in blood) and he was running some extensive tests to determine why he had contracted this type of colitis that he is being treated for. Most patients who have this rare form of colitis usually get it from cancer treatments. This news is not so good. They are considering Mr. Hood possibly having lymphoma which is a cancer that affects the lymph nodes. They will know more this afternoon as to the final diagnosis. Please continue to pray for him and for the medical team as well as Martha Sue who has pretty much moved in at CMC-Main.

Sick Baby

Yesterday (Sunday) was my first true test of taking care of my husband. His test happened on our honeymoon when I get sick from eating some Jamaican Chinese food (go figure) and he passed with flying colors. Chris coincidentally got food poisoning along with three of his friends after working the Charlotte Shout Festival downtown on Saturday. All 4 of them are were in the bed sick as dogs and couldn't move and if they did they would vomit. Chris did a total of 4 times and in between he would mumble every time I would ask him if he needed something so I interpreted the best I could. He had a fever at one point and I put a cold rag on his head and he woke up an hour later and said, "when did you put that rag on my head?" He was pretty out of it all day. I finally got him to eat some crackers at about 5pm and then a little later I made him chicken noodle soup and he just drank the broth. He was so pitiful!

Dakota even knew he was sick because she laid on the floor beside the bed for about an hour and decided that wasn't helping him very much so she decided to jump on the bed (for the 1st time, she got some hops!) and snuggled right beside him for another 2 hours. While they were snoozing I got so much done around the house! Chris missed work today for the first time but he can't hardly sit up because his back and his head hurt so badly. Pray that a day of rest will help him! That is all she wrote!

Gas Catastrophe

It is getting a little ridiculous here in Charlotte with the long lines on busy roads all over the place. If people would stop freaking out thinking that we are going to run out of gas we wouldn't have this problem. What people don't realize is that gas stations are receiving 30% less gas than usual because of Ike (only one national pipeline to the southeast is working)... that is it! But with people blowing it out of proportion and filling up their car plus 5 gas tanks we are all out of luck. There have been so many fights that have broken out and I heard one woman say that she waited in line 2 hours and the gas station ran out two cars in front of her. This is absurd!

Now is definitely the time to pray for our country and for the leaders of our country. I will go no further politically but I think it is time that we act and act fast no matter if it is wrong or right at the time. This could only go down hill from here.

Long Time No Talk

Sorry that this is my first post in a long time... Life has sort of happened and I have been swept away in the whirlwind with nothing to do but follow... Hopefully things will start to slow down here soon. Last night we had small group and we decided to leave Dakota out but shut all the bedroom doors and pick up everything that she could eat. Well, when we got home she found my journal that I use to write about bible things in a MILLION pieces all over our entry way... Other than that she did a great job. I guess it was my fault!

For an update about my boss' dad Mr. Hood.. They did an endoscopy and a colonoscopy yesterday and found some swelling in his large intestine. They are doing a CT Scan today to see what it really is but the spectrum the doctors gave Martha Sue is either colitis (inflamed intestine) to colon cancer. Please pray for the doctors working with him as well as Martha Sue who has been up there everyday all day to make sure he has the proper care he needs. Thank you so much for your prayers and the next post will not be so far away!

Wedding Pictures

I am so excited because we got our wedding album back from our photographer last week and it is SO great! Chris also did the sweetest thing this weekend... He went and got all of the pictures that people had taken with our cameras at the wedding developed. I put them all in order in an album yesterday and it felt so good to have it organized. Our photographers really did a great job and a big thank you to my uncle Fred who took some amazing pictures with our camera!

I also wanted to give you an update on Mr. Hood, my boss' dad. He was moved to a rehabilitation floor in an adjacent building to the hospital where he would receive three physical therapy sessions a day to help him start walking and swallowing again. Since the tracheotomy tube has been removed he has also developed a fungal infection on his tongue which has caused him not to eat. Please continue to pray for this family as the make decisions as to the direction they should take in making the right decisions for him.